What to Expect from Dan Quinn and the Commanders Defense - Part 1
There were two traits that characterized Dan Quinn’s defense in Dallas: speed and aggression.
The pass rush was often orchestrated to create 1-on-1’s and then let the athletic mismatches in the Cowboys’ favor take over. The secondary vacillated between disrupting receivers at the line of scrimmage and playing off-coverage from which they could jump routes.
The end result was that the Cowboys generated more takeaways than any team in the NFL during Quinn’s tenure. They scored the most defensive touchdowns during that span as well.
Even though much of what the Cowboys did over the last 3 years had to do with personnel (and particularly the presence of a unique talent like Micah Parsons), it was driven primarily by Quinn’s scheme. In this 2-part breakdown, I’ll show you the different ways Quinn generated pressure, what his coverage tendencies were, as well as how that all translates to what we’ll see in Washington this season.
Fronts and Stunts
It certainly helps to have a special pass rusher like Micah Parsons on your defense, but much of the Cowboys’ success when it came to getting pressure on the quarterback had to do with the different ways Quinn created advantageous matchups.
He often did this with 5-man fronts, which forced the protection into 1-on-1’s across the board. Dallas always seemed to have an advantage somewhere:
Often times, Quinn would only have to rush 4 out of these fronts. The protection would still have to honor the 5-man look and engage in 1-on-1’s:
It just takes one pass rusher winning his matchup to ruin the offense’s play, and creating as many 1-on-1’s as possible is an effective way of achieving that.
The other key aspect of Quinn’s pressure schemes is that he loves using stunts to create chaos. In fact, the Cowboys were 2nd in the NFL in stunt frequency last season, according to of (Are you subscribed to him yet? What are you waiting for?).
Here’s a great example from Week 2 against the Jets. First, notice the Cowboys’ alignment. They loaded the front with three of their D-linemen to the right of the center. Linebacker Leighton Vander Esch also aligned in the opposite A-Gap:
